Met Office announces winter storm names

Lucy Ball

The names for Britain’s next storms for 2017/2018 have been announced by the Met Office.

A storm will be named on the basis of ‘medium’ or ‘high’ impacts from wind but also include the impacts of rain and snow, so storms will be named for weather systems which expect to have an Amber or Red warning issued by Met Éireann and/or the Met Office’s National Severe Weather Warning Service (NSWWS).

Derrick Ryall, Head of Public Weather Services at the Met Office, said: “Last year was another successful pilot of the storm naming project and it’s great to be now making it operational. Naming storms has been proved to raise awareness of severe weather in the UK, crucially prompting people to take action to prevent harm to themselves or their property.”

Surveys conducted after named storms in 2016/17 have shown further increases in awareness and action taken in response to people hearing of a named storm. Storm Doris for example achieved an 89% awareness score with 94% of those responders finding the severe weather warning useful; 82% of people that took action ahead of Storm Doris felt they were right to do so.

The names for the next year have once again been compiled using suggestions submitted by the public combined with names proposed to Met Éireann. As in previous years, Q; U; X; Y and Z will not be used to comply with international storm naming conventions.

The 2016-17 season saw five storms named, from Angus in late November to Ewan at the end of February. In comparison eleven storms were named in the 2015-16 season, from Abigail in mid-November to Katie at the end of March.

The full list of the 2017/2018 storm names for the UK as issued by the Met Office

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